Chuck Wilson

Audiences are destined to debate the film's final scenes, where Hanley piles on plot twists, leading to a coda that turns a creepily ambiguous story about God and the terrifying power of paternal love into something closer to an X-File.

Mercifully free of excess mania, sexual innuendo and fart jokes, this sweet-natured comedy, ably directed by John Whitesell (Malibu's Most Wanted), has some nice bits of business.

Peterson and her longtime writing partner, John Paragon, as well as director Sam Irvin, clearly worship the Poe-inspired Roger Corman/Vincent Price films of the 1960s, so of course there’s a pit and a pendulum in that dungeon, but who’d have expected it to be so beautifully designed?

The road-trip drama Who's Driving Doug is earnest but not overly sweet — a blessing for a film with built-in sentimentality traps.

Though engaging from beginning to end, be warned that this is also harrowing, utterly depressing stuff.

[A] slow-moving yet soulful documentary.

Clichéd though it may be, this movie was clearly made with love.

West delivers the emotional goods when tragedy strikes in the final reel. If 17-year-old pop star Moore isn't a skilled actress, she's at least unassuming.

Despite the success of these action sequences, Annaud and his ultraserious cast are so determined (admirably) to keep war from seeming romantic that we are never quite pulled into the movie.

You can be sure that his victims die shirtless, and are as dumb as the hetero dimwits who fell prey to Jason or Freddy, but what you might not expect is that this queer-slanted slasher flick is actually pretty good.

The need to tell a story and the desire not to collide in Live Cargo, the narratively uneven but visually exquisite debut feature from writer-director Logan Sandler.

With a dream cast that also includes Patricia Clarkson and, in a cameo, a tattooed George Clooney, fullness of narrative may not have struck the filmmakers as key, and their film feels slight, as if it were an extended short, albeit one made by the smartest kids in class.

The film gains power in the final third...one wishes Thompson had chosen to view the great artist's lives through the eyes of the women who loved (and tolerated) them

Although, in the end, this is basically just a moss-strewn remake of his 1997 hit, "I Know What You Did Last Summer," director Jim Gillespie appears invigorated, sending his capable young cast into a series of nicely staged suspense sequences.

Formulaic but refreshingly low-key weepie.

The Story of Luke is a charming little film in need of a bit more grit.

Saving Shiloh takes place in 2005, but in its setting and sensibility, it feels like 1930s Walton's Mountain.

Dark House is one nutty horror movie, but what's crazier still is how well it works — until it doesn't.

Dead Before Dawn's best jokes are grounded in the warm, believable camaraderie between Casper and his friends, but Mullen is less confident with crowds. The zemon-horde attack scenes are a visual jumble.

Kirk Douglas turns 83 this very week, and surely the fact that he's pulled a rabbit out of the hat at this late date deserves a deep bow.

Vardalos is a pleasing mix of Elaine May and Bonnie Hunt; in other words, she's not a sex kitten, but she's funny and smart.

Hellion offers Paul his most adult screen role so far, and he's very fine, but the movie belongs to Wiggins, a newcomer whose innate gifts are a perfect echo of Paul's.

If the screenwriters never satisfactorily reconcile these charming misfits with the unsettling fact that they're also bomb planters, albeit clumsy ones, they make up for it with smart, character-driven dialogue that's brought to life by an equally sharp ensemble.

Mitchell's unwillingness to define the parameters of the specter haunting Jay leads to a finale that's muddled and confusing, and definitely not scary.

[An] uneven but intriguing found-footage horror flick.

A well-made but emotionally scattered film whose hero gives his heart only to the dog.

[Webber's] performance is crazy good, and so emotionally charged that viewers may be forgiving of a finale overloaded with silly twists.

Never-hilarious but often-quite-amusing film.

Marshall isn't exactly a cinematic poet, but he does a fine job delineating each individual dog's personality, as well as the shifting hierarchy of power within the pack, which is why it's so exasperating that he and first-time screenwriter Dave Digillo are forever cutting away to dull Jerry and his stateside quest for rescue-mission funds.

That decade-spanning finale allows the three leads to age onscreen and demonstrate their impressive range, particularly Liu.

Much meaner remake, starring Ryan Reynolds (quite good).

Ganem and her talented co-stars work hard, but Riedel's pacing is always a beat or two behind their mad energy, making for a film that's enormously appealing, but not quite addicting.

Meandering.

An overlong but deeply felt film.

The all-Polynesian cast, many of whom developed this material as part of a theater troupe called "The Naked Samoans," bring so much energy and glee to the telling that one can only smile and hope they all profit wildly from the American remake that's reportedly in the works.

To their credit, screenwriter Dianne Houston and director Liz Friedlander (both making their feature debuts) go relatively easy on the urban-life clichés and instead stick tight to dance class.

A spirited re-creation of the series that once ruled Saturday mornings.

Refreshingly laid-back romantic comedy.

For his first feature in 15 years, Spanish filmmaker Eloy de la Iglesia has made a witty, unsentimental class comedy.

Despite his obvious passion, Long never fully ties together the human and animal footage, and so the film feels disjointed, as if two different documentaries are being fused into one.

At its best, there's nothing gushy about Dennis Quaid's portrayal of Morris, and more than anything it's his beautifully modulated reserve that holds this film in emotional check.

A hit in Denmark, this impressive debut feature from writer-director Anders Thom as Jensen is decidedly offbeat, with Jensen contrasting moments of brutal violence with the emerging gentleness of Torkild and his friends.

Accomplished yet uneven feature.

In her charming debut feature, writer-director Alice Wu works hard to sidestep both pathos and antic comedy, an admirable ambition that makes for a relentlessly low-key film that nonetheless builds to a third act rich in surprising turns of character.

Unfortunately, two separate screenwriting teams...send Cody away from kid-resonant environs and off to exotic locales, culminating in an overproduced mountain-lair finale.

For most of its running time, Diving Normal doesn't work, and then it does, which makes it both maddening and memorable.

Director James Wong and co-writer Glen Morgan seem, in this film's creaky first third, to be working on automatic pilot, but they gradually cut loose, staging one imaginative and gleefully gruesome death after another.

Adam & Steve is uneven, but it's a relief to see a gay romance that isn't about ab-perfect 20-year-olds, and which features lovers played by two long out-of-the-closet actors. Wonder of wonders.

On the surface, this coming-of-age tale feels slight and unremarkable, yet the director's final close-up of Frankie packs a punch -- a testament to the power of a gifted young actress happily lost inside her first big role.

It’s a good story, and Uekrongtham, making his feature debut, captures the camaraderie of camp life and the subsequent matches with the panache of a veteran studio hand, but the insights into Toom's psyche never extend past the fun he has applying powder and eyeliner.

The director's work is suitably unnerving, but leaves one feeling beaten senseless by reel two. When the hero's well-earned moment of clarity finally arrives, most will likely be too numbed out to care, despite the best efforts of Brody, an actor too vividly alive to be wasting his time playing dead.

If the characterizations are perfunctory, the performances give them unexpected weight.

[A] slightly uneven yet deeply affecting documentary.

There's lots of half-naked flesh on display, and an enticing sense of hot action afoot (especially between the two gay guys), but the directors seem timid about sex, and really, what's the point of being Spanish if you're afraid to show the good stuff?

How nice to see a new comic lead (Ferguson) with the confidence not to hog the screen.

Filled with the kind of frank, nonsensational sensuality that eludes American filmmakers, this movie proves again that the most interesting cinema about teenage life -- gay and otherwise -- is being made far from our provincial shores.

Intriguing yet muddled thriller.

She is known as one of the great muses, yet director Bruce Beresford, Wynter and screenwriter Marilyn Levy are never clear if this is by design or chance.

The dialogue and voice-over narration (by Gordon) are homily-heavy, and the staging sometimes awkward. The prison extras in particular are often left to stare blankly at the gut-wrenching action before them, with many, including Sutherland, looking awfully fit for men who've been starving for years.

Stuck with flat material and a star more adept at responding to humor than generating it, director Stephen Herek, in a vain attempt to generate laughs, enlists Cedric the Entertainer, as a convict-turned-preacher.

Gerber has a sharp cast at hand -- All work furiously, yet the director, with his fake backdrops and stately pacing, never settles on a consistent tone. Surely the novel had more bite.

In Griggs's eyes, they're all fools. Only old Ronnie, dearly departed though he may be, is worthy of reverence.

Silly and pretentious would-be romance.

As producer, writer and star of his first movie, Ray Jahangard gets points for confidence and nerve, but at the end of the day, it must be said that not everyone is meant to work in the movies.

Has no stylistic flair and little forward momentum, yet nearly every scene contains an amusing bit of business, much of it off to the side of the main action.

A debut film that's more well-intentioned than funny.

The final meet felt eternal to me, but little girls may love it all, and even if they don't, they're almost sure to practice their handstands when they get home.

Bettauer means for Arthur and Joe's adventures to be a fable about empathy and hope, but her tone shifts awkwardly between silly and ponderous.

The film takes on unexpected weight when Christian cops to his intense personal loneliness. That's not the stuff of high comedy, but it's brave and, in these days of rah-rah, everyone's-in-love gay media, rather refreshing.

Throughout, Sullivan and Braun shine, making for a match so sexy and appealing that it's a shame Swain avoids their love life, an approach that doesn't exactly advance gay liberation -- or cinema.

At its best, this uneven film by writer-director Dave Boyle suggests that going a bit nuts is a good thing for the rigid paterfamilias.

It's all pure hokum, perfect for a Shirley MacLaine remake, but it's lovely to see Lafont carrying a film so effortlessly.

More problematic is "Inside Out," starring Jason Gould, who also wrote and directed, based on his own experiences as the son of Barbra Streisand and Elliott Gould.

Posey and Rudd are the real deal, so it's almost sad when Priscilla and Jack are left hanging in the final act, their issues unresolved. It's as if the filmmakers lost their nerve when it came time to write the kind of intimate, revealing conversation that can make a sex toy unnecessary.

The finale goes on and on, but the movie is nicely photographed (by John Bailey) and duly empowering, and should please the vast teen-girl audience for which it's intended.

While some may bail early, those who stay to the end are likely to dwell on Zahedi's unwavering (some would say unrelenting) belief in his own artistry, as well as the film's many funny, quotable lines.

If none of it is particularly original or insightful, it's nonetheless executed with skill and economy.

Only Chris Klein, as the lovesick live-in boyfriend of Becky's sister, is given anything like an active emotional arc to play, and he runs with it so beautifully that he steals the movie.

More amiable than laugh-out-loud funny, the film pokes along, buoyed by the motel's bright Hawaiian color scheme, and a moonlit desert finale that's awfully pretty.

In this lively romantic comedy from Canada, actors Wendy Crewson and Joe Cobden give off sparks -- in bed and out.

Rose Marie was — and is — a fabulous talent, but this off-kilter documentary doesn’t completely make the case.

Rich in lovingly assembled silent-film clips, as well as in intimate views of the magnificent Mole, this impassioned yet somewhat too precious fable from writer-director Davide Ferrario feels calculated to make a cineaste swoon, and yet . . . it never quite does.

Generating gore-free unease through sound effects and scary faces is the specialty of director Takashi Shimizu, who helmed the original series (known in Japan as Ju-On). He creates some unsettling moments here, particularly a well-staged scene involving a body under the sheets and a man in a shower, but the evil ghost itself is a predictable, one-trick pony.

Making his directorial debut, Dunstan displays a knack for building suspense. And yet, weirdly, amidst all the requisite blood spray, one senses a reluctance on the filmmaker’s part to linger lovingly over the pierced skins and protruding entrails of the killer’s various victims.

A thriller whose storytelling ingredients are so familiar that one could watch it with the sound off and still know what's going on.

While the final revelation is laughably absurd, DeNiro and Fanning are so far inside their roles that one can't giggle for long.

For this viewer, the climactic scooter-gang rumble, heavy on plot twists and empowerment speeches, felt eternal, but for many, the happy silliness of the film's first half should carry the day.

In supporting roles, Ellen Barkin and Marisa Tomei are marvelously light-footed.

Wisely, the filmmakers don't try to reform the real rich-bitch divas -- some cultural icons are beyond redemption.

Peet and Poor make strong impressions in smaller roles, but then again, edgy and sexy is easier to make compelling than decent and nice.

The movie's saving grace is newcomer Goode, who has what they used to call smoldering good looks, and who can, not so incidentally, actually act.

Promising yet problematic.

Pinned down and smelling death, the men grow into fully realized human beings, which makes for some fine performances, but doesn't exactly propel this epic, richly detailed film forward. The battle, when it finally comes, is brief, admirably non-gory and rather dull.

Disappointing that the film's modern-day race sequences -- which follow quick glimpses of computer-run car factories and pit-crew practice sessions -- fail to excite the senses.

Director Richard Loncraine (Richard III) moves things right along, but during the final tennis match, his pacing is undone by sports-movie convention, particularly the witless color commentary offered by tennis legends John McEnroe and Chris Evert.

A movie with a premise and an ad campaign promising sexual outrageousness, Sleeping Dogs Lie turns out to be rather tame.

The movie's first hour is well-done, but realism and insight go out the window as soon as Samir crosses the U.S. border.

The flashbacks are wittily gothic, and the present-day murder scenes have the absurdist, chain-reaction intricacy of the "Final Destination" deaths.